The Joys of the IntelNet
by bluekiwibubble
Summary: Rose and the Doctor discover something strange on the futuristic equivalent of the Internet. Oneshot. Era 10th. Pairing none, but mentions of slash & femslash


**Title**: The Joys of the IntelNet  
**Author**: bluekiwibubble  
**Fandom**: Doctor Who (10)  
**Pairing**: None, but mentions of slash & femslash  
**Rating**: PG  
**Word Count**: 1393  
**Prompt**: Livejournal community Varietypack100 #76 Who?  
**Summary**: Rose and the Doctor discover something strange on the futuristic equivalent of the Internet

_Kirkgate, Bradford, England. 25th March 2052, 10.39 am.  
_"I thought Bradford was meant to be a right dump?"  
Rose looked round at the huge towerblocks, the sun reflecting off the glass down into the street, making it unseasonably warm at ground level, where they were surrounded by fashionable shops full of anti-matter weight loss clothing, voice activated robot butlers, and other novelties for the extremely well off.  
"It wasn't really. Well, not considering what some other places were like." The Doctor was looking round gleefully, his arms swinging by his sides. "But compared to what it is now..." He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, it was a right dump."  
Rose laughed. "So what changed?"  
"Guy called John Wiggins, member of the city council here, pretty much a complete nobody until one day about, oooh, must be four years ago, he suddenly announced that he'd developed the IntelNet."  
"The what?"  
"IntelNet. Totally revolutionary idea. Made millions. Come on." He pointed at a shop sign, which read _'IntelNet Cafe - Latest psychupgrades here everyday, only 12€$/hour'_, with one hand and grabbed Rose's with the other, pulling her along behind him. She followed him towards the shop, which appeared to not be a shop at all, but a spacious room full of people sat at computers, either watching their monitors or, bizarrely, sitting back in their chairs with their eyes closed.  
They entered the shop and were immediately pounced upon by an assistant in a silver shirt, white tie, grey jacket and trousers, and black shoes.  
"Good day Sir, Madam. Two computers and connectors, will it be? For how long?"  
"Ah, no, just one, " The Doctor replied, "For...half an hour I think'll do."  
The assistant looked slightly disappointed.  
"Are you sure Sir? With two you can get a 10 percent discount if you stay for 3 hours or more -" The Doctor shook his head.  
"No thanks, just the one 30 minutes for us."  
"Very well. That will be 6 eurodollars please." He took the money from the Doctor, removed something that looked like a piece of bent wire from a silver box next to the wall, and led them over to a free computer. Once they were seated before the monitor and the Doctor had taken the piece of wire, the assistant moved away.  
"What're we doing?" Rose hissed at the Doctor, who grinned and said  
"Put this on," as he slipped the wire onto Rose' head so that it ran across her forehead to each temple. He then pressed the 'Start' button on the computer and moved back so that Rose was sat right in front of it.  
"What is it?" she asked, prodding the wire, "What's it do?"  
"It's a connector," he said excitedly, "connects you to the IntelNet."  
"You mean, it connects the person _using _the computer into the actual Inter- IntelNet?"  
"Yup. Thought controlled. Just sit there and think what you want to do and the computer'll do it."  
Rose glanced around the room. The screens at which people were sat with their eyes shut had images, presumably webpages, flickering across them too rapidly to follow. These people were apparently surfing the web to find what they needed by _thought_ alone.  
"So I just...think, and whatever I think about'll appear on the screen?"  
The Doctor nodded, still grinning. Hesitantly Rose closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, before opening them to see if anything had happened. A large picture of a plate of chips was displayed on the monitor.  
"Try again," urged the Doctor.  
She concentrated again, bringing up in turn the website of a clothes shop that they'd passed, a site selling music downloads, and a webpage showing the area of London where her mum lived. Looking around for inspiration as to what to look at next, Rose's eyes alighted on the Doctor, who'd wandered off to read a poster on the wall detailing the advantages of the IntelNet over the 'outdated, unfashionable, labour-intensive' Internet. On the screen a search engine called IntelGoog appeared, showing all the results that had been found for the keywords 'The Doctor'. At the top of the page was the familiar followed by websites talking about the Doctor and his adventures, and even one site claiming to reveal 'the WHOLE TRUTH about that big blue box and the weirdo that lives in it!'. At the bottom of the page a summary of a site caught Rose's interest; 'Doctor Who fanfic - any Doctor, any pairing, any rating.' Intrigued, she thought about clicking on it, and was presented with another page of links, but this time with pictures at the top of the page of the Doctor, as he was now and as he was before, along with pictures of eight or so other men. The information next to the first link on the page made no sense at all to Rose (what did 'Five/Turlough', 'slash' and 'R' mean?), but she selected it anyway, and began to read the page of writing that appeared.

_IntelNet Cafe, Kirkgate, Bradford, England. 25th March 2052, apparently 10.35 am (the computer clock's wrong).  
_Rose stared at the screen. It just...couldn't be. The Doctor, he's not, he isn't...he just doesn't _do_ that, doesn't swing that way...does he? She glanced up at him, scrutinising another poster through his glasses.  
"Doctor?"  
"Yes?"  
Glancing at the computer screen, then back at him, Rose asked, slightly nervously,  
"Who's Turlough?"  
The Doctor seemed to freeze, and whilst he continued to peer at the poster, it was evident that he wasn't seeing it. For a moment Rose thought he was going to pretend he hadn't heard the question, but he turned round and said brightly, although he was frowning a little,  
"Let's have a look at that."  
Rose moved out of the way, handing him the wire connector, which he fitted easily across his forehead as he began to read. He raised both his eyebrows and hastily returned the screen to the page with the pictures on, but overwise there were no outward signs that suggested that what he had just read bothered him at all.  
"Rose, Turlough was...I knew him. But that _definately_ never happened."  
Rose looked at him, still unsure at what to believe, but relieved all the same.  
"What is it then?"  
He peered at the title of the webpage.  
"Fanfiction. But that doesn't make sense - "  
"Which is?"  
"Generally, it's fiction written by fans about fictional characters and places, ones out of books and TV programs, stuff like that."  
"But then why are _you_ in it?"  
"Fanfiction can be written about all sorts of stuff, and I suppose, if people think I'm fictional...or, if not fictional, not entirely real, then they might write about me..." The Doctor grinned at Rose. "Seems I'm a bit famous."  
Rose smiled, but still looked worried. "How're you going to stop it?"  
"Doesn't seem to _be_ any way, really. It's the _World Wide Web_; unstoppable. And even if there was, I'm not sure I would. People have the right to write whatever the like, even if - especially if, actually - it's completely untrue." Seeing Rose's shocked expression he added hurriedly, "But I'll need to have a better look before I, um, make any decisions." Rose nodded, and said,  
"I don't wanna read any more of that stuff, I'll go get something to eat, then come back here in twenty minutes, okay?"  
The Doctor nodded but didn't reply, already absorbed in what was on the screen before him, and Rose wandered out of the IntelCafe to find out if they still had chips half a century in the future.

_Kirkgate, Bradford, England. 25th March 2052, 11.09 am._  
Twenty minutes later, having discovered that chips were still exactly the same, and having eaten a rather large portion of them, Rose walked back into the IntelNet cafe in search of the Doctor. He was sat where she'd left him, peering intently at the screen, his eyes flicking quickly across the text. Coming quietly up behind him, Rose leaned over the Doctor's shoulder and asked,  
"What'ya reading?"  
He jumped, and hurriedly exited the Rose/Reinette story that he'd been reading. Looking around slightly dazedly, he said, in a distracted tone of voice,  
"Come on, let's go and uh, go and...look round or, um, yeah, go..." before clearing his throat and striding out of the IntelCafe, Rose following bewilderedly behind him.


End file.
